


Today, Tomorrow, Always

by nevtelenwriting



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, American Sign Language, Artist Steve Rogers, Body Dysphoria, Brain Damage, Cochlear Implant, Deaf Clint Barton, Deaf Steve Rogers, First Meetings, M/M, Modern AU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Rating is for later chapters not yet published fyi, Self Confidence Issues, Short term memory loss, Steve has a love/hate relationship with his CI, Steve's Gallows Humor, War Veteran Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-02 04:25:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19433881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevtelenwriting/pseuds/nevtelenwriting
Summary: AKA That 50 First Dates!AU I'm frankly surprised I haven't seen yetIn which Steve falls in love with Bucky, and Bucky keeps falling in love with Steve.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _"If you can remember me, I will be with you Today, Tomorrow and always.”_ ― Nirav Sanchaniya
> 
> Okay guys, here it is: A no holds barred, fluffy, never ending stream of meet-cutes. With a smidgen of angst, but what can you do.
> 
> I'm gonna try to update this once a week abouts! 
> 
> Rating is for later chapters, more tags to come as chapters come

Steve had been accused of being a cantankerous grump in desperate need of coffee for most of his life. They were half right; coffee didn’t do much for him, despite or because he drank it as often as water. However Steve was, against all odds, still a morning person, and took advantage of the early sunrise most people in this town avoided at all sleep-deprived costs. Few were up at this hour, sometimes only the baristas and Steve, so he could take the time to enjoy the quiet solitude and get some much-needed introspection and practice time into his day.

He only took three colored pencils this morning, decided to challenge himself to drawing the sunrise with only those and see how disastrous it turned out. As expected, it was so damn early there were only two other customers in the café. The idle conversation and bustling was muted enough that he didn’t need to turn off the aid in his ear.

Steve ordered his coffee and scanned the small shop for the best angle of the sunrise out the window-paned wall. Steve folded his glasses on the table once he found a decent seat and set to work, his tongue poking out a little from behind his teeth as he concentrated on the arch of palm trees haloed by the rising run.

The chime on the opening door sounded, and someone tall dressed in dark clothes walked up to the counter from the peripheral of Steve’s vision. He didn’t pay it too much attention, absorbed in how to best blend the purple into the fading orange and blank white for the sun.

A shadow crept up over Steve, looming above him and he blinked out of his concentration. He looked up at a man stoically staring Steve down, his brow furrowed like someone had just given him a complex calculus problem. He was dressed like he’d woken up in the wrong state; he wore a too-thick coat better suited to Massachusetts than Florida, a ball cap that covered up hair curling around his ears and leather gloves on his hands. He blinked down at Steve, at the table, and then back at Steve. His eyes focused enough in the glaring sunrise to notice the bright blue of the guy’s irises, the sharp bow of his lips. Steve would have said he was pretty except for, well, the awkward staring.

“Something wrong?” Steve tried, and the sharp bow turned downwards, his brow furrowing more.

He never experienced this level of awkward silence before, and Steve had survived some doozies, mostly involving girls and his chronic foot-in-mouth syndrome.

“I sit there.”

Steve blinked. The man finally found the answer to that complex calculus.

“Uh,” Steve began eloquently, and looked back down. He smiled a little and shrugged, “Sorry, I didn’t know. This spot just had the best view of the sunrise. Don’t you think?”

The man looked out the window, his head tilting, brow still tensed to the point Steve wasn’t sure if he heard or understood Steve. The troubled look on his face either meant he had never noticed the sunrise, or it was so painfully obvious that was why he chose this seat that he was contemplating Steve’s intelligence.

Steve wasn’t really of the mind to give up his seat just because this man was upset. This wasn’t grade school, people didn’t have assigned seats anymore. He was trying to figure out how to best articulate the fact that no, he wasn’t moving, when the man nodded once, and then took a seat at the table directly in front of Steve, sipping his coffee and staring out the window with an intensity in his eyes that seemed perpetual. Steve only noticed because when he looked out that same window, he could see the faint reflection of blue and those striking, stoic features in the pane.

Thirty minutes later, more-or-less satisfied with the exercise, Steve gathered up his supplies and left the coffee shop. The man was still giving the window a one-thousand-yard stare.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First chapter is short, so here's Chapter 2 as well. 
> 
> Steve _doesn't_ have a problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve uses some harsh language against himself regarding his deafness; part of his dark, tongue-in-cheek humor and he doesn't personally believe it, but it's what he believes other people sees.

A little over a year ago if someone asked Steve where he would be now, he would have said he hoped California, working at an animation studio and on his way to becoming a storyboard artist. In reality he would have said back in New York, working three jobs in retail to support himself while he searched high and low for some sort of livable job.

This year he was in Florida, finishing his degree at a new university and interning at a design studio with an offer already lined up in California when he was done for that very job. Life was pretty good. Steve never thought he’d end up in Florida, though, specifically in the summer where he was sure he was going to wake up one morning and find every single piece of artwork on the floor melted in a pile of contemporary mush. He didn’t even bother oil painting here.

He liked it though, if only for the sunrise and sunset. He lived every day for those, and with summer underway Steve had time to get up early for it. He’d just found a café-bar called Reva’s that was quiet and small enough for him to get out all the practice he needed.

Except for the strange staring-man. That might be a problem.

This time when Steve went to the café, he sat at a table closer to the wall, across from the one he occupied the previous morning. He didn’t have as good of a view of the trees, but today he was working on quick drawings of patrons who came by, so he could live without it.

The café-bar fusion was small. A seating area with stools lined the actual bar with a wall of assorted liquors, an espresso and latte machine on the counter to join it. It was some of the best coffee Steve ever had, and their tea wasn’t half bad, either. The place was built for more nightly patronage, but they opened early for coffee, stools removed and tables placed around the floor more for purpose and function than aesthetic or order. They closed after the morning until night, where the small tables were taken away and the bar refilled with seats for a quiet place to drink. It was one of the less active places in town, compared to the bars and clubs Steve had gone to otherwise, which made it the most peaceful place to buy a drink, too. Steve just loved the open wall of windows lining the whole front and one side of the building.

The same man, at the same time as yesterday, filed in twenty minutes after Steve, ordered his coffee and sat down in his proclaimed seat without a word. He stared vacantly out the window, sipped at his drink in silence. He never acknowledged Steve, so he supposed that their weird conversation was not a precursor to weirder interactions. Steve studied him for a while without really realizing he was doing it.

The compacted nature of the café meant that most people had to weave in and out of the tables to get to their destination, or walk around the bar to loop from the opposite side. The strange guy hardly noticed or acknowledged others as they passed by. If anything, he tried to make himself as small as possible sitting at his table, a feat in itself by his height and broad shoulders alone. The only undeliberate movement he ever made was a flinch once, shied away from someone who bumped into him accidentally. He still didn’t utter a word.

The guy held his mug almost delicately in both hands, never actually setting it down like it was fragile china or a loaded gun rather than a thick porcelain container. He had a distinct profile to his face, a strong arch to his jawline and the bridge of his nose that Steve could easily pick out of a crowd. He only looked away from the window to sip his coffee, giving Steve a view of the front of his face, the way his eyelashes fanned out on his cheeks and the way his full lips shaped around rim of the cup. He looked tired, eyes traced in puffy red like he hadn’t had a restful night in weeks.

Before he noticed, Steve’s pencil was scribbling over the page, capturing the shape of his eye, the distracted stare of a thousand thoughts, or perhaps none at all, dancing inside his head. There was no way he could be void of thought, Steve figured, not with how he looked out the window without seeming to see anything beyond it. Steve wondered what those thoughts could be.

A solid few minutes passed where he was best capturing the shape of his gloved fingers on the white mug, when he looked back up to his reference to find the man was gone. Steve frowned, looked back down at his sketch drawn in quick, cross hatched lines. He tucked it away in his folder.

The weekend was over, so Steve returned to work, consumed by projects and deadlines that made him nearly forget about the man by the window.

Nearly.

The same routine played out the following weekend. Steve didn’t actively seek the man out, not really. Steve liked Reva’s and so did this guy. He didn’t know who he was, or what he was like. All he had gleaned was he was quiet, focused, and apparently reclusive enough to rival Steve; he had no reason to seek him out.

Steve also figured he was hurting in some way. The redness in his eyes never waned, the vacant stares never faltering, delicate hold on the cup no less obsessive like one bad move would break it. Steve knew enough to recognize this guy had been through something awful. The longer Steve sat there the more he hated seeing him sit alone. The thousands of thoughts Steve wondered about before suddenly seemed lonely, and overwhelming. Steve itched sitting there, but Steve was more an action person than a verbal person, no pun intended. Steve was never any good at starting conversations with people not like him. He didn’t know the first thing to say so the guy didn’t keep staring at the window like it wasn’t there at all, like he wasn’t there at all.

But dammit, he still tried. He knew he was being creepy and stalkerish just watching his isolation, so that third weekend, Steve stopped at his table, and said an awkward, “Hi, remember me?” with a short, meager wave.

The man had moved his head, indicating at least he heard Steve, but didn’t look up. He turned fully back to the window to study it without a word or a glance to Steve.

Biting his tongue and his pride on the failure, Steve found a seat away from him and sketched. He continued his own routine of quick gestures of the customers, capturing trees and people walking their dogs. Try as he might though, he gravitated back to his permeating quiet. He had the wildest eyes Steve had ever seen. He likened it to the flame from a blowtorch, or the base of a candle flame, where the heat burned hottest in bright, scorching blue. He had a dusting of a stubble on his face that on most, looked unkempt, but the softness of it with his tired features screamed of too many long days and too many long nights. Steve could relate, and may have hit his sketchbook into his head more than once to jar loose some sort of tactic to talk to this guy and muster up a successful conversation. No luck. Steve continued on sketching, and thinking, and sketching, and sketching some more with nothing jarring loose.

“You have a problem.”

Steve peeked up from his sketch he was coloring in with a frown. Sam had his arms crossed, eyebrows arched up to his hairline and staring Steve down in his makeshift studio. It was mostly a desk and materials filed under Steve’s lofted bed, but it worked, and left room on the floor for bigger projects.

His roommate apparently had no desire to blink first, so Steve tried valiantly to prove him wrong.

“No I don’t.”

Sam’s eyebrows arched up impossibly higher, “You don’t?”

Same marched over to Steve and pulled down his sketchbook, where he had been coloring in the combat greens and browns in the quiet man’s clothes.

“You don’t, huh?” Sam snatched the notebook, delicately but swiftly so Steve didn’t have a chance to yank it back. Sam presented the pages and flipped through them for Steve, as if he didn’t already know about the sketches in there. Sam placed it on the desk yanked open his drawer full of notebooks, the ones Steve had filled up, and pulled out the topmost one to present the next series of sketches.

“Nope, I guess you don’t.”

Steve chewed on his tongue. Sam made it sound like he did nothing _but_ draw this guy, and that wasn’t close to being the case. Steve drew plenty of people plenty of times. Regular customers were great practice to establish consistency. This man just...happened to be the most interesting regular in that café.

“Dude, just ask the guy out already.”

Steve choked on air and coughed it out, while Sam stared on in mild disapproval.

“It’s not _like that_ ,” Steve wheezed, and Sam looked about as convinced as Steve felt.

“Uh huh. Yeah, see, when I look at your room? I dunno if I should call someone or give you and your sketches a minute alone together.”

“Not. Like. That.” Steve gritted out, more assuredness in it this time, because it was _true_ , dammit.

Steve didn’t know what this was, but it certainly wasn’t Sam’s implications. Steve didn’t know why he was drawn to this guy, his tired, intense eyes and meticulous motions, but it wasn’t because he wanted to jump in his pants. Though he was certainly wasn’t hard on the eyes. He wished he didn’t wear gloves or that hat all the time, Steve wanted to draw the dark softness of his hair, or the curve of his fingertips around his coffee. He wanted to know what he sounded like when he talked, or what he looked like when he smiled.

“Steve? You’re drifting.”

Steve blinked back to present and frowned at his drawing, pushed it aside so he could drop his chin into his hands. “I don’t know what it is. I just, wanna _talk_ to him, that’s all.” And stare at him for a month.

Sam blinked, “Yeah, that’s still called a crush Rogers. Have you even talked to him yet?”

“Yes,” Steve answered immediately, morosely, “I’m not a damn _stalker_.”

Okay. Steve wasn’t in denial, he was sort of crushing on the guy. But he hadn’t even entertained that thought due to the stunningly pristine track record of Steve barely managing to make _friends_. The only reason he had garnered friendship in Sam, Clint, and Sharon were because they were the friendly extroverts that adopted Steve from his corner of awkward artist misery. Add the bonus of trying to flirt? Steve was asking for embarrassment.

Not that Steve didn’t try; he wasn’t shy by any means. He tried every time one of his friends pushed. All were failures, except Sharon herself. And, well. Long story short, long distance sucked. She had a great guy back in New York now and Steve was going to try not to be miserable about that for the rest of his life. It was probably why she asked so much about his love life, though Steve would much rather everyone leave him be about it.

Steve just had a habit of rubbing people the wrong way. Coupled with the stunned looks at the cochlear implant attached to him, well. People might like the brownie points of making nice with a broken person, but they didn’t go out of their way to befriend someone broken _and_ sarcastic. Steve had come to terms with it, and was used to his social life being by proxy through Sam.

Sam sighed and scrubbed his hand over his head, plopped down onto Steve’s couch. “Did you like, just say hi or did you take my advice?”

“Both,” Steve folded his arms on his desk and wilted into them.

After the third weekend’s debacle of an introduction, Sam told him to offer a coffee or just sit with him. Be bold, and confident. Boldness Steve had in spades, but smoothness and flirtation was left out of his repertoire. Also, while Sam knew what he looked like, he could only convey so much in his sketches and Steve delicately explained that this guy looked like he could break Steve in half and definitely looked like he had seen some shit. Sam retracted his earlier advice, amended it to instead ask to sit with the guy first.

“And? How’d it go?”

It went about as well as Steve could expect. That fourth weekend Steve tried again, this time with little foresight and a lot of gumption. He had asked the guy if he wanted coffee, and immediately realized after he probably should have asked before he sat down, with his coffee, in his hands.

He predictably blinked at his coffee, frowning at it, then looked at Steve with that same calculus-confusion scowl. Steve cleared his throat and back pedaled, “I mean later. Like, can I buy you coffee tomorrow? Next week? Whenever you’re in again.”

The guy studied him, still ruminating and contemplating Steve like he was trying to figure out just how big of a tool he was, and replied, “I can buy coffee.”

Steve left immediately after that, booking it out the door for a nice, swift ride home.

“ _Steve_. Oh my god.”

Steve grumbled into his arms, “Yeah.”

“Who _taught_ you how to pick up _anyone_?”

“Thanks.”

Sam scratched at his jaw, and now Sam frowned with an abject pity Steve sort of wanted to punch off his face. Steve side-eyed him. “Don’t make me hit you.”

“I said nothing!”

“Yet your mug says poor Steve.”

Sam snorted, “Uh huh.” He stood up with a long stretch, paced over to Steve to pat him on the shoulder.

“Okay, so, what next?”

Steve frowned, picking at a dog-eared corner of his sketchbook. “Keep drawing his face and pining like a puppy?”

“Oh, no. Sorry to say, but if you don’t have luck with you on this, you gotta move on. It’s not healthy. You know that.”

He did. Didn’t mean he wanted to stop looking at his face. It sort of became a nice routine to his summer.

Sam sighed at his lack of reply. “Okay, look. How about try again, but just ask him out to eat, strike up a conversation about the weather, anything. But if he turns you down, three strikes, you’re out, Steve, okay? Leave the poor man alone.”

That’s what Steve was afraid of. Mostly because this man still looked like he shouldn’t be facing whatever the hell it was on his own. But that didn’t mean Steve wanted to keep bothering him. The guy didn’t seem interested in anything but his coffee and a timely schedule. Steve had no intentions of pursuing this further. He smiled at Sam though, a little exhausted and a lot resigned, and lied, “Yeah, sure. I’ll try.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve tries to decide whether to attempt a third shot talking to the quiet man. It doesn't go as planned.

Steve ended up working a deadline late into Friday night and Saturday morning, so when he meandered half-awake to Reva’s thirty minutes later than normal, Steve’s fellow recluse was already contently settled into his somber brooding. He had his mug of coffee, his signature gloves and hat, yet no jacket this time, long sleeves in its stead. At least Steve didn’t fear heat stroke from him this summer. Not that Steve cared, or should care, or noticed at all.

“You gonna order something today kid, or you gonna stare a hole in my window? If you are, move it, you’re making a line.”

Steve jumped out of his thoughts when the frankly frightening raven-haired barista, also known as Jessica, snapped at him, and Steve blurted out the first tea that came to mind. He didn’t even like chai, Christ. Jessica’s eyes narrowed at him, but any remark was cut off by the steady yang to Jessica’s yin rumbling out from the back room.

“Could you not scare away one of our regulars?”

Jessica rolled her eyes up to her head and went to the machine to make the latte, mocking his words under her breath.

Luke poked his head out from behind the door, a brow arched at her. Jessica visibly cooled, if her lowered shoulders were any indication.

“Want a muffin?” Jessica called over her shoulder. “On the house.”

Steve couldn’t say no to a muffin, but paid for it in a tip he shoved into the jar when Jessica wasn’t looking. His normal seat was taken so he had to sit directly in front of the guy this time, tapping a rhythm against his mug and leaving the muffin untouched. Habit made Steve pull out his sketchbook, but he didn’t open it this time. After his talk with Sam he lost the desire to draw much of anything at Reva’s. It felt sour, now.

Steve slowly placed it back in his bag with a heavy sigh. No more sketching one of the best muses Steve ever had until he talked to the guy. But between Steve’s chronic awkwardness and the man’s apparent disinterest, Steve didn’t see the point. He never even looked at Steve when he came in, and he’d seen him every weekend for over a month. Not that Steve gave the guy much to work with.

His choices were either bite the bullet and tell the damn guy he liked him already or at least wanted to get to know him, either on a friend-date or a date-date, or admit this was a lost cause, find a new café and wallow in his never-ending lack of human interaction. Melancholy pining and sketching still seemed the better option, but Steve refused outright to be that person on sheer principle.

By the time Steve realized he’d delved a little too hard into existential introspection the man was gone. Steve startled at that; this guy was never gone yet, he stayed for forty-five minutes like clockwork. Steve checked his watch to be sure.

A harsh bump to his shoulder made Steve’s heart nearly heave out of his chest, lodging in his throat the next second when the austere man dropped into the seat across from Steve; apparently he had walked up from the other side of the café. He sprawled back in his seat, arm braced on the table and taking up more room than he ever had before, dwarfing the chair, the table, and Steve in comparison.

The guy levelled one of those signature stares on him, only this glower had the added bonus of something that looked like ire.

“Uh. Hi.” Steve supplied, lame and flat, and the scowl deepened. Those blue-fire eyes were on full blast, practically burning on him and Steve wasn’t sure if he should keep staring longingly like the tool he was or duck tail to run. The guy had biceps that could rip his sleeves.

“You keep watching me.”

Steve gulped, relief flooding through him he wasn’t caught red-handed with the sketchbook today. He only felt guilty he hadn’t approached the guy first, though, so Steve sat up straighter and crossed his arms over his chest.

“You noticed that, huh?” Steve had the decency to sound contrite, cause yeah, it was a bit rude. Okay, a lot rude, but he could _explain_ now.

The guy bristled. He had his left arm braced against the table, and now his fist clenched up, shoulders hackling with what Steve now realized was a _terrible_ answer to that statement.

“Stop it.”

Steve’s heart clenched all over again but for an entirely different sensation of dread. If this guy was angry enough for a fight Steve was not going to win, and he had _some_ self-preserving bones left in his body.

Steve leaned forward and tried to explain himself, “Hey, look, I didn’t mean anything by it, honest. I’m real sorry, I just. I know I tried to. Before, you know. You. What I mean is.”

Steve’s tangent lost focus the more he lost his resolve for the truth. Did the guy even remember Steve tried to talk to him before? Based on the thinly bridled aggravation he doubted it. He coughed, cleared his throat to buy a second of time to think while he resisted the urge to drop his head into the table. What would Sam do here? Steve looked to the muffin.

Steve took the plate and shoved it over to the guy. “Can I catch lunch with you sometime?”

The man stared at the muffin. Then at Steve. And then at the muffin, all with the same levelled severity. His brow pinched in.

“Uh, that’s for you.” Steve tried. That same, contemplative confusion creased the man’s face and Steve felt like an utter _moron_ , because—

“Oh, fuck, shit, my name’s Steve.”

The guy returned to staring at him, or maybe through him. Steve didn’t know, but there were a six, freshly-bought bags of chips back home Steve was going to devour tonight after avoiding a fight—probably, that was still up in the air, it seemed—and never again wonder why he couldn’t get make friends.

“Why?”

That wasn’t exactly what Steve expected to hear but given that the top of the list was ‘ _No’,_ Steve practically jumped in his seat from joy.

“I, uh.” Honesty kind of worked in Steve’s favor, most of the time. “I kinda want to know more about you?”

Semi-honesty, but _‘I like your face,’_ was probably a little too strong for the time being.

His face twisted up in distaste as if Steve said something insulting. Steve cleared his throat, kept pushing forward. “I’ve seen you a few times and it sucks you’re sitting on your own, and even if it’s just, like, a one-off talk, I swear I won’t stare anymore and I swear I really do just want to get to know you.”

The guy arched a brow at the muffin now. “Talking? That’s it?”

How he managed to load three words with that much skepticism, yet unmissed insinuation Steve would never know. Steve puffed out a breath, intrigue piqued but still weighing the ramifications of actually telling this guy about his crush. Steve had no idea he swung that way and, to reiterate, he looked like he could break Steve.

What would he do though, do it with witnesses? Fuck it. Steve could fight dirty if it came to that. “Well, a drink or two wouldn’t hurt.”

Both brows shot up to his hairline then. He looked like he was waiting for Steve to say ‘ _just kidding,’_ but Steve held his ground.

The guy’s mouth twitched up at the corner, not in a scowl but not quite a smirk, either. Then the guy snorted, his hand flying up to his mouth to hold back the sound and cover a half-second of an involuntary smile. It did nothing to hide the way his eyes crinkled up for that moment and wow, he looked _warm_. Steve might be willing to bend over backwards to see a full smile from this guy.

It was gone as fast as it came, that disbelief back on his pinched features. He removed his hand, ran it through his hair in an exhausted gesture that made him look wearier than before.

“Shit.” The guy said, dripping with a stunned sort of…acceptance? It didn’t sound skeptical. He shook his head with a heavy sigh, picked up the muffin and said to the pastry. “Try me again later, okay?”

He took a bite as he stood, then saluted Steve with the pastry. “It’s James. For next time.”

He turned on his heel with a motion so fluid Steve almost forgot he’d been watching this guy bustle around as unobtrusively as possible for the last month, and headed out of the café. Steve’s head did greet the table this time, mourning his ineptitude—

Steve’s head lifted. “Wait.”

Holy shit he said his name. He said his _name_ and _try again_.

Okay maybe only two bags of chips would be devoured tonight.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve comes back the next week to reply to James's offer. Oops.

Steve told Sam, naturally, and neither knew whether to eat confused victory chips or commiseration chips. Either way it resulted in a movie marathon, another classic Sam had never seen since Sam was more of a music guy than a movie guy. The next day Sam sent Steve a playlist of bittersweet love songs to lull him to sleep. Sam thought he was hilarious.

He didn’t return to the café on Sunday, mostly because he didn’t want James to think he was a coward and Steve needed time to process whether to take James seriously or not, considering, well, James had laughed at him.

While the laughing-at-Steve thing was generally a deal breaker, Steve also was pretty sure James had not actually been laughing at him at all. It seemed more of an inside joke he had been laughing at, something that wore him thin and somehow tired him beyond the ceaseless lines under his eyes. James also didn’t seem like the type to laugh at people. Granted, Steve had now heard a grand total of two dozen words from the guy, so he wasn’t exactly an expert on his personality.

By Friday Steve concluded that it didn’t matter. Laughing aside James had taken his muffin and told him to try again. Steve was hopelessly invested now, just by sheer obstinance to meet his remark. Steve was a sucker for a mystery, and worse still for a challenge.

That following week Steve went back, sat across from James at his table, and said, “So how about that lunch?”

The reaction he got wasn’t any Steve had anticipated.

James jumped back in his chair like he’d been shocked, the metal legs screeching on the tile when he pushed away. He still held the mug of coffee when he looked up at Steve with wide, rapidly blinking eyes, stared at Steve like he had socked him in the jaw or outright threatened him with bodily harm.

Steve’s resolve flew out the window in an instant. Feeling guilty for surprising the guy, Steve cleared his throat, leaned away to give James more space. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. You said try again next time? I come with muffins.”

Steve flashed him a smile, pushed over another muffin, same flavor as before since Steve knew he at least liked last week’s.

James didn’t say a word. The shock had faded but he still stared at Steve with unchecked, genuine consternation, like he had no idea what he was talking about, and like a man desperate to run. Did James really forget? Steve sagged a little further into his chair.

“You know, last week?”

James’s face softened then, confusion abating but no less distressed. He swallowed hard and set down his mug.

“Did I say that?”

The words were soft, but Steve didn’t miss the hesitancy in it. He was hoping Steve would say no. Steve gaped his mouth like a fish a few times instead of finding a reply. Saying the obvious seemed wrong, suddenly.

James scanned Steve up and down to piece together whatever clue he could find, then scoffed to himself. He shook his head, rubbing his fingers over his temples.

“Shit, ‘course I did.” He didn’t say it to Steve, mumbled under his breath. His left arm, hugged tight to his lap before now bore closer to his stomach. He stood and chewed his lip, and did not meet Steve’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

James left then, using the table for support while he all but ran out of the café. Steve was amazed with his willpower to stay still, given every cell in his body wanted to ooze into the floor.

Now that his cells were protesting his decision not to ooze, Steve remained rooted to his seat, and must have stayed there long enough to garner some pity. Also, the café was empty now. Christ, they were closed. How long had he been sitting there? Steve needed to move.

He heard bickering behind his head, a series of _no you do it_ and then a yelled _THOR_ before the bright deli expert skidded over to Steve with a fresh mocha and a sandwich.

Thor attended Steve’s university, an international student from somewhere Steve couldn’t recall that stayed during the summers here. They didn’t cross paths much, Thor was in the science department and had a few classes with Clint, and Steve only saw him at lacrosse games Sam sometimes dragged Steve to for the sake of social interaction. They also crossed paths here.

Thor was pleasant enough, but put Steve’s bluntness to shame.

“Keep your head high in the face of failure, Steven!” Thor boomed with a smile, held out the drink and the sandwich to Steve like a piteous offering. Thor was nice, but he was also utterly oblivious.

Steve grimaced and stood up, grabbing his hoodie off the chair. Thor frowned at him for a second, and then immediately perked back up.

“Yes, of course, take this for your journey home. This sandwich was personally made, best for even the worst hangovers and worst disasters! This sandwich is a cure all, I stake my heart on it.”

Steve gritted his teeth and shrugged on the jacket. “No thank you.”

Thor set the food on the table then, the smile fading. “You do understand this was not a failure of your making, yes?”

Steve paused mid-zip, then muttered, “What the hell do you mean?”

“This was out of your power! Without the full scope of who James was, of course your courtship would fall through. And yet it didn’t! Jessica even _tried_ veering James away from you last week yet James returned your flirtations!”

Steve’s head pounded, reeled and became floaty all at once. “You. What?”

A loud, exasperated groan joined them from Jessica. “ _Thor_ , you motherfucker.”

Thor was grinning wide again. “Jessica warned James of your unending, stalkerish staring and James took it as invitation!”

Steve balked. “You told him _what_?”

“Jessica?” Thor looked back at her, all smiles and all teeth that suddenly didn’t seem as oblivious as Steve thought.

Jessica hopped up on the counter, picking something from her teeth and adamantly not looking to Thor or Steve. Luke, standing to the side with arms crossed and a pinched look in his usually passive features walked around the corner, leaned against it and stared dead at her.

“Jessica.”

“Nope,” Jessica sucked her teeth. “Not it.”

“Love. You’re the cause of this mess.”

“I’m totally not.”

Luke sighed, and then shot some sort of coded look to Thor, because Thor shrugged. “I am a much better motivator of teams.”

Luke cast sour looks at his co-conspirators, before taking James’s former seat.

“Sit down, Steve. We need to talk.”

In the end, Luke didn’t give much. Luke reiterated, many times, that a man’s business was his own business, first like an apology that he wouldn’t tell Steve more, then like an assuagement that Steve couldn’t know more. He at least mentioned that James was dealing with things, personal things, and sometimes he had memory problems because of it. He often didn’t remember people right, not even Luke, Jessica, or Thor sometimes. Because of that, Jessica, with her misplaced over-protectiveness, decided _not_ to tell Steve to lay off but instead gave James fair warning that Steve was sort of…interested with him and had been coming around a lot and watching him.

“I think I said, hey James, this guy has been staring at you like a lovesick moron the last few weeks, you notice that?” Jessica supplied.

Luke grimaced, "That's not quite what you said."

"Whatever."

At first, Steve was sure they were screwing with him, finding an elaborate excuse to get Steve off this guy’s back and stop trying to engage. But the longer Luke talked with a somber, straight face, the more Steve registered this wasn’t a joke at all.

Now Steve hackled up, fists clenched on this thighs while he gritted out through his teeth. “You should have said something to my face.”

“I’ve known James longer than you, genius.” Jessica drawled, and Steve’s almost raised out of his seat. It’s not the first time someone talked around him, talked to others about him, found a way around having to engage.

“Yeah, that’s it? That’s why you didn’t _talk_ to me, nothing else?”

Jessica gave him a pointed look, “Relax, it’s cause I don’t know you.”

“I didn’t _do_ anything.”

Jessica rolled her eyes and Luke rubbed his hands over his face with a suffering sigh.

“No one thinks you did, Steve. You’re a good guy, I’m sure. Any other day, any other guy, this wouldn’t be a thing. But James is not… available that way. His business is his business.”

And that one, that Steve heard as more of a warning.

He was pretty sober by the end of Luke’s lecture, sitting up straight and feeling less sorry for himself, and more, well, angry. Why didn’t James just say that? Why didn’t anyone here say that earlier? They could have easily told him to back off any other week. He was still stuck on what Thor said, that maybe James had actually been interested, or at least he was last week.

“You’re still welcome to come by.” Luke added, though it sounded pacifying. “Don’t let Jessica’s hospitality shy you away.”

“No, please, let’s encourage him,” Jessica muttered, and Luke rolled his eyes up to his skull.

Thor had been picking at his nails the whole time, casting furtive glances between Steve, Jessica, and Luke and looking more and more dismayed by the conversation. At this point Thor frowned, sounded at least a bit more sincere when he added quietly. “Do come back, Steven.”

Steve cleared his throat and pushed away from the table, muttered a thanks for the food and drink he didn’t touch, and headed out.

He needed to clear his head.

*

Clear his head meant, in Sam’s world, call Clint and go out to a movie and give Steve time to not think. In Clint’s world, it meant going out for pity drinks without a second’s chance to dispute it the moment he showed up to their apartment, inviting half his engineering class and a few people from his and Sam’s falconry club, since that was apparently a thing, and drowning Steve’s sorrows as fast as he could. Even Thor was there, who gave Steve the dignity of not dragging up that morning but offered Steve shots every time he passed by instead.

The buzz of constant noise and static set off his implant a little too much so Steve ended up switching it off to enjoy the quiet instead. Sam knew enough sign to check-in, which Steve humored and settled in to nurse a third drink and watch the throng of people.

James forgot people sometimes. God, what did that even mean? How often did he forget? Was it everyone all the time, or just some people some of the time? Did he remember Steve at all? Was there a point in even trying again?

That lecture still cut into him and the more he thought about it the more Steve’s skin itched and his stomach churned. Fine, he could get over-protectiveness. Steve knew that song and dance. But they couldn’t have talked to him? Was James that unstable or were they that over-protective? Experience told Steve it was likely the latter, or it was because of Steve himself. No matter the good intentions, it still made Steve taste copper in his mouth. If James wanted him to back off, he could have told him himself.

 _‘He did, Rogers,’_ An invasive, bitter reminder supplied, and Steve grimaced at himself. Did it count if it was last week, directly before he told Steve to try again? The not-remembering seemed like a moot point, but also a violently crucial one that Steve couldn’t fit on the scale of migraine-inducing confusion.

Okay, maybe sitting back and watching people hadn’t been the best option.

Steve grumbled into his hands, smoothing them over his face before letting the aggravation slump him into the table.

No matter what Luke, Jessica, or Thor had said, James still flew out of there like a bat out of hell. No memory or otherwise, two weeks in a row he still ran with a clear ‘ _all aboard the nope train_.’ Steve got the hint.

Steve peeked up when someone tapped him on the shoulder, and Clint slid into the seat next to him, pouting at him for the full affect when he signed, “ _Why the long face?”_

Steve sighed, signed back, _“I don’t know where to start.”_

Given James wasn’t even anyone in Steve’s life it felt weird to call him out as the problem. Steve wasn’t even sure what he was feeling sorry about. Mostly, he was just irritated.

Clint shrugged, _“This is your pity party. Try me.”_

 _“Oh by the way, thanks for that,_ ” Steve grimaced and rolled his eyes to affect the sarcasm, and Clint grinned.

_“Only Sam and I know that, it’s cool. Would a movie have helped anyway?”_

Probably not, and a stiff drink certainly did help cool down some of the aggravation.

Steve sighed and replied, a little tentative of how to explain this. _“Have you ever been told not to bother talking to someone, without ever getting the chance to talk to them?”_

_“Are you kidding? Deaf life.”_

Steve laughed, relaxed a fraction. Jeez, at least Clint understood. He sat back in his seat with a sigh. _“Wanted to talk to this guy at this coffee place. But I got warned off because the guy has some problems.”_

Clint arched a brow, _“What kind? Axe murderer problem, or weird kink problem?”_

 _“Memory problem?”_ Steve shrugged helplessly.

Clint’s brow pinched. _“Memory problem.”_

Steve didn’t want to delve into what Luke told him, privacy and all that. So Steve shrugged again, slumped back into the table. Clint slumped down too.

“ _Was he cute?_ ”

Steve nodded. _“But he dressed in a million layers every day, I only got to see his eyes.”_

_“Damn. Kinda sounds like my friend Bucky.”_

Steve snorted. That was a hell of a nickname. _“His name is James_.”

Clint wheezed, probably, knees hitting the bottom of the table and looked like he was about to have an aneurysm with the sound he swallowed back. Steve sat up and watched Clint’s face do an impressive amount of emotions, most of them pure disbelief.

 _“You have to be shitting me_ ,” Clint signed, and then burst out into laughter.

No, Clint never fucking elaborated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5: Working on it! About halfway written, got bogged down with work and some other fics. Hopefully will have it up later tihs week, or it will be posted with Chapter 6's update, as well, because that one it doneish, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos give me life
> 
> Drop me a line! Come find me over at nev-telen.tumblr.com


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